Rough Passage to London(44)

“From America, are ye? Well drink up hearty, my beautiful sailors. Thar’s plenty ’ere even for ye Yanks.”

Ochoa and Icelander started walking toward the bar, smiling at the prospect of getting a drink. Morgan and the two other sailors looked around for chairs. Before too long there was trouble brewing. It started with a steady stream of hushed whispering that swept from table to table, but that soon led to shouting.

“Yankee dogs!” one of the drunken English sailors yelled out. His nose was squashed against his face as if it had been broken. “Too good for the king, are ye? Why don’t ye go home and take all the thieving poor beggars from here that you want? They’ll make good Americans!”

The insult was greeted with cruel laughter.

“Yeh, ye Yanks can ’ave all the dippers, dragsmen, and mughunters ye want!”

The two barmaids, who were making their rounds with the sailors, quickly put their trays down on the bar and left the room. To their credit, Morgan’s sailors kept quiet, but the baiting continued. Morgan looked for Molly, but she was nowhere to be seen. One barrel-chested man with arms like a bear strode up to the bar where Hiram was now standing.

“Will ye be swearin’ allegiance to the crown now that yer drinkin’ with proper Englishmen?” asked the man.

Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan spotted the glint of a knife blade under a table, and then another glimmer of metal emerging from a man’s pocket.

Bedlam broke loose. Pistols came out in the open and shots were fired. The few women who remained in the room began screaming as the British sailors charged toward the American sailors, clutching their weapons. The White Bull Tavern became a dizzying whirl of clubs and cutlasses, shaggy heads, bristly beards, and muscular tattooed arms. Morgan yelled for the Hudson’s sailors to head for the alley and pointed at the side door he’d spotted earlier. He could see Icelander’s white head of hair moving in his direction. He was swinging his heavy capstan bar with two hands, knocking down two sailors with one blow and then hitting another in the head with a thundering crack. Morgan watched in horror as an English sailor raised his pistol to fire at Icelander, but then the man dropped face first to the floor like a tree falling in a forest. The Spaniard retrieved his knife, and smiled at Morgan as he and the others passed him and reached the door to the alleyway. To slow the onrush of their attackers, Icelander picked up one man he had just clobbered and hurled him onto the heads of his closest pursuers.

Once outside, Morgan told Ochoa and Icelander to quickly close the alley door with the wooden latch and hold it shut.

“Don’t let them out!” he cried. “Hold ’em in there!”

He found the ladder he’d seen earlier. It had clearly been left there by some painters who must have been scraping and painting the façade of the building earlier that day. The dark alleyway was surrounded by a high brick wall with broken bottles stuck into the mortar. He took the ladder and propped it up on the wall. He clambered up to the top rung and pulled out his pistols. He told the rest of the sailors to run for it, and he would hold off the English. Morgan aimed his pistols, loaded with one-ounce lead balls, at the tavern’s alley door. When the first sailors broke the door down, he fired at their legs. Two sailors cursed loudly, clutching their legs while the others retreated back into the tavern. Morgan pulled the ladder over the wall and jumped to the other side, making a clean escape. From the courtyard where he had landed, he could hear the angry shouts of confusion as his assailants tried to deal with their wounded and figure out which direction the Americans had gone. This commotion was followed by the pounding of feet on the cobblestones as they ran off.

It was his concern for Laura that convinced him to walk back into harm’s way. Instead of running away into the maze of alleyways that surrounded him, he reloaded his pistols with lead balls and clambered back over the wall, pulling the ladder with him in case he needed to make a quick escape. Silence greeted him as he opened the tavern door and looked inside. With a pistol in each hand, he stepped inside the White Bull. The floor of the tavern was littered with the debris of broken tables and chairs. The whole place stank of stale beer. Shattered glasses, plates, and mugs were scattered across the floor. He was about to call out for Laura when he heard a woman sobbing. He turned toward the sound to see Laura’s sister, Molly, and quickly walked over to where she was crouched on the floor. Beside Molly lay a still, limp body. Morgan stood there, silent and motionless, for what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few seconds.

“All of this destruction! It’s yer meddling!” she cried out, her mouth twitching in pain. “They was waiting for ye. Ye know that, don’t ye?”